Crazy W/shop hapennings. Post yours.

On the subject of water logged Toyotas, if the interior in your post '05 diesel Hiace is getting a bit grubby it doesn't pay to use a garden hose or waterblaster to clean the cab out.A panelbeater client of ours and one of his apprentices found out the hard way a while back that the ECU is under the drivers seat and isn't sealed.Problem showed itself as the engine starting and running for precisely 10 seconds before dying again. We thought at first it might have been an immobiliser issue due to the exact timing of the engine dying, until discovering that after all these years of Euro vans having them Toyota are still too friggen cheap and lazy to fit them.As the vehicle had been off the road for some weeks having crash damaged repaired this wasn't discovered until the main PCB inside the computer was nicely corroded in a few places.You live and you learn.

Years ago a man brought this old 6 cyl Vauhall into our workshop, he had just bought it cheap cause it was only running on 5
Did a comp test, nothing at all on no 3, so off came the head. To our surprise there was no piston or rod in there, looking further we found the crank journal had some thick gasket paper around it held in place with a hose clip, neat aye
Looked like it had been like that for awile as well

Typical kiwi, piston broke (o:

I remember when I started my apprenticeship, this old syrian mechanic I was working with told me about doing exactly that to a v10 Mercedes truck out in the desert to drive it 2 days back to a workshop (somewhere in the middle east). Wouldnt surprise me if he had done it to somebodies car as a perk job.

Or the apprentice who is told to fill the car up with oil so he does that undoes the filller cap and fills motor to the top of the rocker cover

Had an unbelieving father come ranting and raving after we discovered serious engine trauma in his sons car. Seems son can do no wrong and it was the cars fault and we were just out to gouge him. Funny thing is both front tyres had burnout marks on them and the inner guards were covered with melted rubber. But, anyways, father decides to take car home and fix himself after we had removed and stripped engine. Being a conscious sort of person I didn't just supply him all the bolts and electrics but I gave him a few extras just in case he needed them. 8 years on and I still wonder if he found homes for all the bolts and bits.

few christmas' ago, we were having a few beers after the big clean up on the last day, when a couple of likely lads came in with a honda on the end of a towrope. For some reason they had decided to do a cambelt on it on Christmas eve. They couldnt get the crank pulley bolt out of it tho. They asked if we could do it, even tho we had obviuosly finished for the year. Being a nice guy, I said I would, but it would cost them $20 bucks. OK, go ahead. So I lie down on the wet concrete (its raining) in my streets clothes, get my 3/4 rattle gun, and pop it off. Once I stood up, they all of a sudden decided that they couldnt speak english, and werent going to pay for something that was far too easy as far as they were concerned. I was ripping them off! Never mind that I spent over 1k on the gun alone, plus all the other costs to run a workshop, this was too much as far as they were concerened. Oh well, better stik it back on then I think! But not before turning it up to 4 on the trigger, and giving it a few good twists as well to make sure that bolt is well tight. Cant have the crank pulley coming loose while towing it home, after all! All of a sudden, everyone can speak english again, and now offer to pay the 20. Trouble is, price has now gone up to $40. After all, I will have had to do it twice, havent I!.

They spent the rest of the day towing it around west auckland trying to find someone who could take it off:-)

back in mid 80's i was working as the gopher in a suzuki dealership , we had a customer with an absolutely mint 1979 gsx1100et. brought it in one day saying it was running absolutely terrible so could we give it the works in a full service and cure the problem while we were at it. anyway mechanic checked and adjustedtappets where needed, cleaned filter , fitted new plugs etc then left oil drain tray under it and went off to smoko. 10mins later we come out to an overflowing drain tray and an oil pool about 4 ft wide, seems a month or 2 before he'd gone off flying around the world he had done an oil change himself, only problem is he hadnt drained the existing oil out so instead of (from memory ) 2.8L worth it had 5.6 !took longer to clean the mess properly than the service had, the customer was very embarassed

When I was apprentice one lady came in with Austin 3litre saying it had engine vibration. Mechanic had done valve grind a month before I started.He went with her and found vibration was at 90 mph.Another time I think it was New Plymouth the car came in the country, a Austin 2200.When the old guy delivered it to our shop, I thought I heard it missing on a cylinder. Popped the bonnet and no 6 ht lead wasnt there. He hadnt noticed a thing.

Another time years later different place we got an apprentice to fill the radiator on a Leyland truck. He got a coke bottle and went back and foreward filling it. Took him almost all day. We let go at it as no hurry and laughed

My boss at the times son was buying bikes out of japan and brought back an RGV that had no kick start, but the son and put it in gear and given it a push and it felt like it had compression, brought it and others back to NZ to find that it had rags though the little ends on both barrels and rags packed into the top of the barrels, the motor was absolutely toast. You live and learn I guess

A towtruck mate of mine was telling us about picking up a broken down car for an Indian gentleman. A price was ageed upon and off they went to drop the car at his house.Then after delivery he tried to negotiate the price down .
Bad move.He hooked it back up , dropped it back where he picked it up from, but blocking a driveway, then called the councill about said car blocking driveway.

My craziest one would have to be a client putting engine oil in his brake fluid reservoir then bleeding the brakes. Golly what a mess that was to fix.